This blog is for every woman
in the world who is a Mother,
or who ever has wished or hoped
to be a Mother

The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and Cooking through My Grief

Taking it one recipe at a time. 2013 will be mainly focused on "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook," by Dinah Bucholz, and how doing what I love, cooking, being with my family and reading Harry Potter will help me process my grief associated with loosing my 3 week old daughter, Ruby, on November 18th, 2011.Join me for a "culinary magical masterpiece" throughout 2013!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

I know I have been distracted and not staying on top of my Harry Potter posts, I'm sorry to all of my faithful readers! :) Life gets busy sometimes, lets just say that.
Well tonights Dinah Bucholz Harry Potter treat is the Dundee Cake, which is a fruit cake, and is actually a very yummy fruit cake. I sound a bit skeptical but I really don't like fruit cake and was not looking forward to making it, but I am learning to love Dinah's taste on her take of the HP menu. This recipe calls for apple juice and juice from an orange. I was fresh out of apple juice, but had a beautiful green apple. So we pulled out my amazing Breville, juicer, and made our own. If you have never juiced a green apple before I highly recommend it! YUMMY! We also juiced a minneola, which is like an orange, but perhaps a bit more tart. They are my favorite!!! I believe they are only available in grocery stores right now though, so run to the store and buy yourself a box of mineola's! You will not regret it! I took a picture of tonights treat, just wanted you to be aware that I attempted toasting almonds, I say attempted because you will notice that I blackened most of them...that is because I have not mastered multi-tasking yet, or perhaps I should say I have not learned that I shouldn't multi-task! Either way, Dinah has also taught me to fall in Love with everything Almond! I love almond extract and toasted almonds! Super, super yummy and add a fantastic flavor!
This week Brian and I made a strange realization. We realized one night as we were having a discussion that we were struggling, having a difficult time. Why is this, we wondered. Both of our children are healthy, we are financially stable, our cars are running great, we have been amply blessed-so why are we not connecting??! And we realized that looking back on our marriage we have litterally spent most of it in high stress situations and have not learned how to relax, and enjoy the calm of life. It was time for a change, truly we should be walking blissfully everywhere we go because of the low level of stress! We have tried to make a few changes in our day to day schedule-and by changes I mean actually making a schedule, making time for each other-puting dating on the top of our to-do list, spending time with our children and just learning to enjoy a calm life. It is interesting how when things are calm there is this strange level of discomfort and a sense that we must cause some sort of upheaval to have purpose again. So, all of those years that we spent praying that the rocks in our road would be removed perhaps have been answered, and the Lord is now smiling down on us as we learn how to enjoy the calm. I put this in as part of my Ruby post because I don't think we are alone with this feeling. Perhaps others have felt the way we do, after walking through a refiners fire, of sorts, and truly needing your spouse as a strength and help, you wake up at some point after that and realize that you have spent way too much time stressing and having the water over your head you forgot to take care of the seemingly little things, like the love notes, the phone calls, the flowers and even just the kind words. I guess I am realizing that life ebbs and flows, and my one true constant is my husband, and we are learning, and sometimes struggling to learn how to continue to Love through all the changes of life!
Have you experienced this? has this ebb and flow of life effected you in your relationship? Just hoping we aren't alone...